Forget Miami, forget Southern California, forget Philadelphia - GIVE ME BOSTON and New England!!!!! I spent the weekend in Boston - what a fabulous city!!!!!!
I drove to New Haven Friday night and spent the night there so I could visit Yale on Saturday. It was not too impressive.....I followed the map to downtown New haven, but couldn't find Yale. I kept going too far a field and finally realized that it was right in front of me!!! It just sort of blends in with the downtown area.
From there, I headed on toward Boston, but made an unplanned stop in Hartford to visit the Mark Twain home and museum. (I had an urge to buy insurance while in Hartford, but resisted). His home is absolutely awesome!!
It's a 3 story, 19 room house in the Gothic style with several steep gables and brick walls painted in various shades of black and orange. The interior was designed by Tiffany. My tour guide was absolutely the best I've ever had. His life clearly revolves around "Sam" as he affectionately refers to him. While waiting for the tour to begin, I struck up a conversation with a couple from Seattle and by the end of the tour, the three of us were playing "Stump the Tour Guide". We were throwing out totally bizarre and off-the-wall questions about Twain, but he answered every one of them!!!
Some interesting trivia about Mark Twain: 1) He has no descendants - three of his four children died young and his one grandchild committed suicide at a young age. 2) The day he was born, Halley's comet was visible and he always predicted that he would die the next time it made an appearance....and he did - 74 years later!!!!!
I spent so much time in Connecticut that I got to Boston later than I had planned, so I changed my mind about going to Cape Cod this trip. Also, the traffic was terrible!!!! They are tearing down the main artery in Boston and putting it underground so that added even more confusion to the holiday traffic. Even without the holiday and construction, driving in Boston is maddening (way, way worse than Atlanta!!!). There is no rhyme or reason to the way the streets are laid out and they change names constantly. One really weird thing that I don't understand......the main street in downtown Boston is Washington Avenue, named after Georgie. In tribute to him, every street that crosses Washington changes names on the other side. I haven't quite figured out how that is a tribute.
Traffic aside, I absolutely, positively fell in love with Boston!!!! It is beautiful, it is clean, it is just plain fascinating. I went on a trolley tour of the city and saw all the historical sights.....the cemetery where many of the patriots are buried, the Boston Common, the Public Garden (where the historical Swan boats are), the sight of the Boston massacre, the Bunker Hill memorial, the USS Constitution, some of the places where victims of the Boston Strangler were found, and, of course, Boston's number one tourist attraction: CHEERS - or by it's real name, The BULL AND FINCH PUB. Even though there are more historical sights in Boston than Philly, I didn't get as strong a sense of history in Boston as I do in Philly. And there seems to be somewhat of a rivalry between the two cities in that respect. When the tour guide was talking about the cemetery and naming off everyone who was buried there, he mentioned a stone to Ben Franklin, but never actually made it clear that Franklin is buried in Philadelphia.
Saturday night I took the subway to Harvard. Contrary to Yale, Harvard is very impressive!!!! I spent a couple of hours just walking around Harvard Yard and the campus. And the subway system there is great......very much like DC - clean and easy to maneuver. Boston is a very compact city.....you can get around very easily on foot and by subway.
On Sunday before heading back to Philly (reluctantly), I went to JFK's birthplace and the Kennedy Library and Museum. That is a really neat place - I spent way too much time there!!!!
One interesting thing......upon hearing my Southern accent t(which of course, they only imagined....they are the ones with an accent!!) , people would of course ask where I'm from. Now, here in Philly, when I say Dallas, TX, I get all kinds of responses.....mainly questions about cowboys, and the Cowboys, and South Fork. In Boston, though, I got a totally different reaction. It's hard to describe----it wasn't hostile or rude, but people seemed to just pull back emotionally..... I never got any kind of verbal or enthusiastic reaction. I was puzzled by it until it dawned on me......I was in Kennedy country. While all the Bostonians I met were basically friendly, they obviously still associate Dallas TX with the assassination.
And the food!!!! Oh, my gosh!!! I had all kinds of great seafood.....lobster, shrimp, crab, the BEST clam chowder, trout (OK, trout's not really seafood, but I had it anyway). I had brunch Sunday at a really nice restaurant overlooking the bay.....sat outside......it was beautiful!!!
I've already planned my next trip - the weekend of June 18. The Rangers will be in town playing the Sox at Fenway so I'm going to that and then also go on a whale watching trip and try to scoot over to Salem and down to Plymouth (to see the Rock).
Tomorrow I'm heading for Atlanta for the weekend.......Amanada leaves for the great race from Marietta on Sunday.
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